The issue of the newest and smallest member of the Audi family caught a few people out. The A2 was a kind of miniature people carrier. Audi, which builds some of the world's most desirable saloons, was not especially famous for creating things in miniature. Nor had it previously shown an interest in doing anything so vulgar with people as "carrying" them. Wafting them along in the hush guaranteed by smoothly functioning, coolly applied German technology, yes. Carrying them, no.
Out came the A2, regardless - bravely short, and narrow enough to require just the one windscreen wiper. Also light enough that, when that windscreen wiper is thumping away in fast mode, the rest of the car appears to vibrate in sympathy. Which is not something likely to trouble the owners of, say, £60,000-worth of Audi A8.
Now, following the petrol versions, here comes an A2 kitted out for diesel and achieving a virtually planet-saving 65.7 miles per gallon. Own one of these and trips to the petrol station will start coming round with the infrequency of lunar eclipses. Again, this is not a situation affecting A8 drivers.
What the A2 does have in common with the A8 is the reassuringly high quality of construction (which you pay for), plus the all-important cachet that goes with the badge (which you pay for, too). Even though it's the cheapest Audi, it's still indisputably an Audi, so you know that that it's highly unlikely that someone will have forgotten to tighten its bolts or have neglected or to buff the inside of its ashtray to a standard well in excess of the European regulations on ashtray interiors.
The A2 certainly looks covetable. Though it was doubtless modelled for months on end in the light of a million pieces of market research, it nevertheless has something of the raw appearance of a concept car - something that has come among us a couple of years ahead of its time and before the production-line robots had quite finished with it. It also readily inspires affection by smacking to some extent of a vehicle out of a chil dren's animation.
It has this in common with almost any new, family-oriented car you care to mention. Has there ever been a time when cars looked less grown up than they do now? Someone, somewhere, has decided that there is money to be made by appealing to people between 25 and 45 who retain a residual fondness for things they liked when they were four. In the case of the A2, you could set it down with Fireman Sam on the streets of Pontypandy, and it wouldn't look entirely out of place.
In terms of size and application, the A2 seems to be pitched somewhere between the Smart car and the Renault Scenic. Unlike the Smart car, it will hold more than a couple of people and a baguette. Unlike the Scenic, it won't cope comfortably with the parapher nalia of a family holiday.
But then the car doesn't seem to want you to go very far in it. Intended primarily as a city runabout, the A2 is notably without bull-bars and gapingly high wheel-arches. It may be, however, that a city car needs these kinds of accessories more urgently than an ostensibly rural vehicle. Hence the take-up for Jeeps and other such armoured cars in built-up areas. People think you need an active suspension for the countryside. Actually, you don't. As long as you don't try and drive over the animals, the countryside is, by the standards of today's urban areas, mile after mile of smooth road. Right now it's the towns, with their humps and blips and traffic-calming chicanes, that call for springs and padding, and even - in some areas of London - for rally drivers' harnesses and floor-mounted fire extinguishers.
Ironically, then, what the A2 does not do is ride the urban ruts gracefully. I omitted to slow down for a speed bump at one point and almost had cause to call out a chiropractor.
Because I was driving the diesel version, it rattled like a London taxi and accelerated only by appointment. ("You wish to go from 40 to 60, sir? We should be able to fit you in within the next 20 minutes.") Still, like any Audi, it was a pleasure to sit in. Its design responds to another popular modern impulse, which dictates that a car should approach as nearly as possible the condition of a conservatory on wheels. The windows are expansive enough to grow trailing plants up. Everybody gets to sit up high and enjoy the view.
Everybody gets to enjoy the air, too. The A2 incorporates an award-winningly large sun-roof. A canny automatic mechanism causes the roof panels to split, fall back and interleave, in what could be regarded as a tiny tribute to the Sydney opera house. Best enjoyed from the outside, really. A bit like the suspension.
